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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Bootstrapping to $15 Million: Ernie Bray, CEO of ACD (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: When you were actually processing claims, what did you see that triggered this idea? Ernie Bray: What I saw was that claims technology systems were outdated. They were just green screen technologies at that time. I’ll give you an example. When I was looking at AAA, appraisers would go out and take photographs of
Bootstrapping to $15 Million: Ernie Bray, CEO of ACD (Part 2)
Ernie Bray: After three years, we ended up shutting down the business. It was my first taste of starting something on my own from scratch. We didn’t make much money, but during that time we didn’t know how to monetize something on the Internet. This was new, but it was the thing that clicked for me.
Bootstrapping to $15 Million: Ernie Bray, CEO of ACD (Part 1)
Ernie leveraged his domain knowledge in auto insurance claims processing, and has built a robust, sustainable business. He uses a virtual workforce strategy to scale. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances? Ernie Bray: I was
Bootstrapping With A Paycheck: Katie Echeverry, CEO of Unique Vintage (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: You sell apparel through them or shoes? Katie Echeverry: Apparel. Sramana Mitra: That’s awesome actually. Katie Echeverry: It is. I really knew nothing about wholesale. They were so patient with me with all the terminologies. I remember saying, “What’s EDI?” They were very patient and have taught me a lot. I couldn’t have
Bootstrapping With A Paycheck: Katie Echeverry, CEO of Unique Vintage (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: At what point did you introduce alternate channels like eBay and Amazon? Katie Echeverry: I brought eBay into the mix in 2003. We were doing so well in 2006 to 2007 that I stopped, because I couldn’t manage two platforms. This was before there were a lot of connector tools that can keep
Bootstrapping With A Paycheck: Katie Echeverry, CEO of Unique Vintage (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Do you remember what your revenue level was in 2007? Katie Echeverry: About $100,000. Sramana Mitra: For the year? Katie Echeverry: Maybe a little bit more. We got our first space to accommodate the Internet business, but people were coming in off the street wanting to shop. We made a little showroom. Within six months,
Bootstrapping With A Paycheck: Katie Echeverry, CEO of Unique Vintage (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What happened in year one and year two? What kind of numbers did you do in year one and year two? Katie Echeverry: I think I did about $3,000 in my first year, and then $6,000 the next year. Every year, I doubled. Sramana Mitra: In year three, you still have your pharmaceutical job,
Bootstrapping With A Paycheck: Katie Echeverry, CEO of Unique Vintage (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Katie had a pharmaceutical sales job that she used to bootstrap with a paycheck for 5 years, before quitting to go full-time with her business, Unique Vintage. More stories like this can be found in my Bootstrapping With A Paycheck book.